We lost by talking: US point man Stephen Bosworth (l) gave North Korea unmerited stature by meeting with diplomat Kim Kye-gwan.Getty

North Korea fooled us once. Shame on “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. Now Washing ton is ready to let Pyongyang fool us again. Shame on us.

On Friday, President Obama’s point man on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, concluded a two-day meeting with Pyongyang’s deputy foreign minister, Kim Kye-gwan. Describing the atmospherics, both sides used the type of diplomatic clichés meant to obscure what took place: “constructive,” “businesslike,” etc.

So here’s another oft-used diplomatic cliché: The meeting’s only significance is that it took place.

That’s quite a lot. It means Washington is willing to ignore much evidence about the worth of Kim’s word and “explore,” according to a State Department statement, “the resumption of talks, improved relations with the United States, and greater regional stability if North Korea demonstrates through actions that it supports the resumption of the Six-Party process,” meant to end the North’s nuclear program.

Great deal for North Korea: We’ll bring its rogue regime back into the family of nations; in return, Pyongyang will show us — “through actions,” no less — that it’s willing to talk to us.

As if after all these years we don’t know the outcome.

Ever since the Clinton administration declared a breakthrough in its “agreed framework,” one American negotiator after another learned this lesson the hard way: Once the hard negotiations end and a pact with the North is signed, the countdown to violation begins.

And with each violated agreement, Pyongyang becomes more threatening than before, improving its nuclear and missile technologies and launching provocative attacks on its neighbors immediately after it receives our promised aid deliveries.

Our top diplomat, Hillary Clinton, should have learned from her predecessors, including her husband’s secretary of state, Madeline Albright, who graced Pyongyang with a “historic” high-level visit and, after tremendous hoopla, signed a bilateral pact with Kim. Years later, in retirement, she admitted the obvious: North Korea “cheated.”

The Bush administration, especially in its last two years, tried a different tactic, avoiding any bilateral Washington-Pyongyang diplomacy in order to facilitate the “six-part talks.”

But that attempt at outside pressure exerted by several countries ended in failure, too. The North pulled out in 2009, after provocatively testing nuclear-capable missiles.

Until now, Obama had an innovative solution: no policy on North Korea. Now he’s launching a hybrid, “exploring” bilateral negotiations (which have always failed) as a first step toward renewing the Six-Party Talks (which also failed).

But wait, say some proponents of renewed North Korean “engagement.” Kim Jong-il is apparently very ill. By renewing our contacts with his regime, we may be able to influence Pyongyang at the time of transition of power to his son, Kim Jong-un.

A former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, says that there’s no indication that “helping the regime fracture” was the Obama administration’s objective in launching last week’s meeting in New York.

“If that was what they were trying to do, they were talking to the wrong people,” Bolton, a longtime hawk on North Korea, told me. Instead, “I would identify disgruntled generals who don’t believe in hereditary succession and see what we could do.”

Indeed, our experience with rigid, isolated and belligerent regimes’ transfer of dictatorial powers from father to son shows that outside diplomatic nudging has little to no effect. It rarely, if ever, leads to positive changes.

Syria’s Bashar Assad came into power in 2000 promising significant reforms. But despite Obama’s best “engagement” efforts, Bashar (who’s surrounded by his father’s old power players) is now engaged in the kind of ruthless repression that wouldn’t shame papa Hafez.

True, even the ruthless Damascus regime can’t compare with Pyongyang when it comes to ignoring and fearing the outside world and its total disregard of the welfare of the citizens. Nevertheless, Assad’s succession model points to the likely trajectory of the Kim succession.

Showering the North with unearned diplomatic gifts — let alone aid and other goodies that will likely follow as we move to the next stages of negotiations — is bound to lead to similar results as in the past.

Facing an old trap even the readers of the funny papers can recognize from miles away, Obama’s taking another run at Lucy’s football.